


The Beast

by lazulibundtcake



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Blood and Gore, Crowley eventually makes a series of documentaries called Your Actual Mammal, M/M, My strong nature-oriented brand, Probably no smut who even am I, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Shapeshifting, Tags will be updated as guitar noises intensify, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulibundtcake/pseuds/lazulibundtcake
Summary: Written for @racketghost's 13 Days of Halloween prompts.   I owe a debt to my beloved spooky friends for guiding me back into horror after too many years away from it.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30
Collections: Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween





	The Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @racketghost's 13 Days of Halloween prompts. I owe a debt to my beloved spooky friends for guiding me back into horror after too many years away from it.

Corporations do not come with instructions. Rather, in Hell they do, a four-inch stack of smudged mimeographs that has been stored in one of the more fetid lower circles for an unknown and unpleasant length of time. In Heaven they come with expectations.

This means it is almost entirely up to the issuee to figure out how to muddle with the gooey, unintuitive stuff of reality. And  _ that _ means earthly aspects are generally shaped by the wearer’s comprehension of humans and also of themselves, which explains why so many angels end up looking sort of lacquered on, all polish and hard shine, while demons tend towards more of a tar pit aesthetic. 

Aziraphale was what he was, and never expected to look different. Certainly his long tenure on Earth had changed him -- nearly 6,000 years of physical sensations would change anyone -- but since the Beginning he had inhabited his human skin as fully as possible and would have been frankly surprised to find it otherwise. 

Crowley loved changing forms.

The journey between snake-shaped and man-shaped demon had been like pulling off a particularly tricky gymnastics maneuver, not only physically but mentally, and required a deep twist of his consciousness that made him aware of the possibility of other ways of folding, other tertiary structures. He had itched to try something else and eventually left the Garden as one of a pack of hyenas, their rollicking gait and brazenness appealing on a deep level.

Over the next few thousand years he tried the skins of countless other creatures, although these days he had fallen out of the habit. It was still  _ fun _ , but more and more he found himself having  thoughts -- sensations --  _ emotions _ , that really only felt comfortable in human shape. Especially those that concerned one particularly compelling and confounding angel.

He certainly hadn't planned on telling anyone about it.

But of course he told Aziraphale, after too many drinks in the dark corner of a smokey tavern during an unexpectedly heated argument about the emotional capacity of crocodiles. 

“You  _ what _ ?” Aziraphale blinked at him owlishly, managing to look both scandalized and intrigued.

“Sure, yeah, and why not?” He leaned back and kicked his feet out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. Shrugged. “Don’t see what the problem is.”

“ _ You _ wouldn’t, of course.” The angel sat up very straight and sipped his wine, glancing at him from the corner of his eye.

"I wouldn't. So what is it?"

Aziraphale huffed. “It just seems to me,” he said primly, and Crowley couldn't help but watch his fingers tracing the rim of his wineglass as he spoke, “that there are some stones better left unturned.”

“You really think so?” Crowley leaned forward and snagged his own glass from the table, draining it, signaling for more. Then he started telling him about otters.

Another bottle took them through the sound-based maps of pipistrelle bats, and the screamingly fast dives of peregrine falcons; and if he spoke too floridly about the multi-faceted taste of living blood on his wolf tongue it was only because of the way Aziraphale’s eyes were shining in the firelight, how he had leaned towards him, mouth slightly open, fingers still sliding idly over the stem of his mostly forgotten glass.

"S'great fun, yeah, honestly really, really. S'good. Until you get caught," he finished lamely, and then bit his tongue. 

Aziraphale looked scandalized again. "Caught by  _ whom _ ?"

"No one."

"You  _ did _ ."

"No one important," he admitted, finally. "Just humans."

But Aziraphale insisted, even ordering another round of drinks, until finally Crowley told him how the group of boars he’d been trailing had happened upon an orchard littered with rotting apples. Getting drunk and smashing tree trunks had seemed like a fine idea at the time, and it wasn’t until he awoke, naked in a pile of pigs, to the faces of aghast villagers that he’d realized his mistake. Had to hightail it out of there, and there hadn't been enough time to convince people out of what they had seen.

Later, clear-headed (or as clear-headed as he got where Aziraphale was concerned, these days) he regretted telling him that last part. It was almost certainly the kind of indiscretion that would count against him in their relatively newly-minted arrangement. He told himself that they had both been drunk, and he had rambled quite a lot, and with any luck Aziraphale had just forgotten all about it.


End file.
